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1836c.11 Recollections of a Jersey City Boy -- And A Different Rule for Plugging
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Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
From John Thorne, July 28, 2015:
"This just in from Ben Zimmer, a Facebook friend who writes for the Wall
Street Journal. Important, I think.
'You might be interested in another early baseball example -- it's from the Jersey Journal from Jersey City (where I live!), written in 1871 but recalling a protoball club of the 1830s:'
"While here let me say to the Champion Base Ball Club, for their information, that in eighteen hundred and thirty-six and seven we had a base ball club that could not be beaten. It was composed of such men as Jerry O'Meara, Peter Bentley, J.C. Morgan, Jos. G. Edge, &c. I acted as the spare pitcher to the first nine. In those days the game was played by throwing the ball at the man running the bases, and whoever was hit was out. if he could not jump to the base from where he was hit. I would rather get hit by any member of the club than by Bentley, for he was a south-paw or left-hander, and he used to strike and throw an unmerciful ball."
Sources:
"Recollections of a Jersey City Boy, No. 3.," Jersey City Evening Journal, Dec. 13, 1871, p. 1, col. 3
Warning:
John Zinn: It feels to me that the author is conflating a number of different things (his role, for example) into a club that played in the late 1830's. However even if he is off by 10 years, a club of some kind in the late 1840's would be something new and, as John Thorn suggests, important.
Comment:
Peter Bentley later became the town's mayor.
John Zinn: The article in question is the third in a series that appeared in the Evening Journal late in 1871. I've been able to find the first two (it's not clear if there were any more) and this is the only reference to base ball.
John Zinn: Found two more articles by our anonymous author, but with a lot of biographical information suggesting very strongly that he is John W. Pangborn who happened to be the brother of the editor and founder of the Evening Journal.
John Zinn, "Base Ball Before the Knickerbockers", October 1, 2015: "[I]nformation provided in the articles about the author's life and activities was so specific as to positively identify him as Stephen Quaife, an English immigrant, whose family moved to Jersey City in 1827 when he was only one. Identifying Quaife, however, immediately ruled out his claim of having "acted as the spare pitcher on the first nine," since he was only about 10 at the time. Quaife's name did, however, ring a vague bell and a look at Jersey City's first base ball clubs finds him listed as a pitcher in a box score of a July 11, 1855 inter squad game of the Pioneer Club, founded that June. Clearly Quaife was conflating his own brief base ball career with whatever he knew or thought he knew about another club 20 years earlier.
"This 1871 account of a club some 35 years earlier has the same problem as other descriptions of pre-New York games in New Jersey, they are all retrospective, none come from contemporary sources. . . .
"There is, however, some further evidence of pre-New York base ball in Jersey City. The July 12, 1855 Jersey City Daily Telegraph article describing the game Quaife did play in, clearly states there were 11 on a side and that five games were played in one day . . ."
"Quaife's account further supports the idea that young men in New Jersey were in the field with bats and balls well before the state's first clubs were formed in 1855."
See https://amanlypastime.blogspot.com/2015/10/base-ball-before-knickerbockers.html.
Circa
1836
1844.19 Town Ball Reported Among Cape May Attractions and "Mischief"
Location:
Age of Players:
"All kinds of pleasure are at command, as balls, or hops, as they are termed here, fireworks, town ball, ten-pins, billiards, music, riding, flirtation and mischief."
Sources:
“Notes by a Visitor at Cape May," Philadelphia Public Ledger August 1, 1844
Year
1844
1848.20 Knicks Begin the Year's Play Days at Hoboken, Cricket Club Chooses Manhattan.
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Game:
Age of Players:
"The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club opened the season last Thursday, at its ground in the Elysian Fields in Hoboken last Thursday. Its play days have been changed from Tuesday and Friday to Monday and Thursday of each week.
The St. George's Cricket Club will open the season on the 28th, with a day's play, on its ground at the Red House, on Third Avenue [Manhattan]."
Sources:
New York Sunday Mercury, April 9, 1848.
Comment:
"This is actually quite interesting, as any notice from the press is very rare at that time." --Richard Hershberger, 4/12/2021.
Query:
1848 was the year (see Baseball in the Garden of Eden, p. 35) that the Knickerbockers set out to re-consider their rules. Did they address playing rules, or just operational ones? Do we know what changes emanated?
Year
1848
1849.16 Two Eight-player Teams Play Bass Ball at Elysian Fields
Location:
Age of Players:
"An exciting game of Bass Ball came off at the Elysian Fields on Thursday last. The club was organized at the “Pewter Mug” (kept by that patriotic and devoted friend of the “Sage of Lindenwald,” the Widow Lynch), and proceeded to the ground; where Doctor Ingraham, of the Statesman, and John Midmer, Esq., were selected as captains.
Ingraham, having the first choice, selected Messrs Malbrun, Bouts, McConnell, Watson, Wells, and our friend, Captain Joe Cornell, of the sheriff's office.
Midmer made up his side with Messrs. John M.. Rue (the best player of the party), Chase, Alderman Fream, John Robbins, Aaron Butterfield, Car, and Burrett.
Doctor Walters, the coroner, was appointed game-keeper and judge—twenty-one ins the game. All things being in readiness, the sport commenced, and the game was warmly contested for about three hours, with various prospects of success. Night coming on, and there being no liquor in the neighborhood, the judge decided that neither party could win. The decision was cheerfully submitted to by all; and it was agreed, unanimously, to meet at the same place next Friday, and finish the game. With this understanding, the party made the best of their way to York, where the individual performances were duly discussed, and the sportsmen themselves amply refreshed—of course. The issue of this great game is certainly “highly important,” and we hope to be able to announce it next Sunday."
Sources:
New York Atlas, April 29, 1849 and May 6, 1849.
Note: Richard's full May 2019 19CBB posting appears in the Supplemental Text, below.
Comment:
We assume that the phrase"21 ins the game" means that the first side to score 21 runs was the game's winner.
Query:
Richard asks: "I don't recognize the individuals. These clearly are men of substance, so I expect they can be tracked down. The mention of "the club" is intriguing. Is this an actual organized club, with or without baseball as its primary purpose? Or is that an informal usage?"
Abijah Ingraham was a newspaper editor and Dem Party politician. [ba[
Year
1849